Americans do not get irony, small portions and cricket. End of and fact. We know this because it says so in our Little Book of Stereotypes That Ignore Britain's Obese Obesity Problem, The Work of Larry David and America's Burgeoning Cricket Culture. Those jokes aren't funny anymore; those familiar with the work of Bart King, the remarkable 19th century fast bowler from Philadelphia, would tell you they never were. But the putative American still serves as a useful tool for celebration of cricket's unique depth and eccentricity. The five-day draw is the most common example of this – how could an American possibly understand – although there is an even better example in the England side at the moment.

Consider this for a logic googly. Person A is the most successful attacking player in his team when they play the least attacking of the three forms of cricket, yet in the two more attacking forms of the game he cannot get a game. He is kept out of the side by Person B, even though he is essentially superior in both roles that their position demands. Welcome to the curious case of Matt Prior and Craig Kieswetter.

The Spin is openly in love with Matt Prior. If there was a free-for-all to touch his beard, we'd break sexagenarian bones to secure our place at the front of the queue. Last week he was inevitably named in the ICC Test World XI. Of the three England players in that side – Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad were the others – Prior's place is probably the most secure. He is a class act who was man of the series against South Africa and ensures every stone is turned in his attempt to become as good as he can be. There's even a bit of an aura around him. His selflessness, professionalism, excuse-aversion and excellence are such that, with Andrew Strauss gone, he is arguably the most impressive man in the England team. And although disciples of Alan Knott's genius would legitimately be appalled at the suggestion, in purely statistical terms there is a strong case for Prior making an all-time England Test XI.

Yet he can't even get in the current England one-day and T20 XIs. The man in his place has to work particularly hard to win affection, and not just because he is ahead of Prior. If the Spin had a shiny new coin for every time we had heard somebody opine that Kieswetter has to dropped, usually with a cussword or three, we wouldn't be writing this on a Tuesday night to earn a crust. It's said that England haven't replaced Paul Collingwood, and it's true that in Test cricket they still have no middle-order firefighter, but he does have a spiritual heir in Kieswetter: the man who, at least in the the public eye. is forever fighting for his place. His South African background surely doesn't help. The criticism of Kieswetter peaked during the second ODI against South Africa, when he dropped three catches, none of which were extremely difficult. During the next ODI, the excellent South African journalist Neil Manthorp wrote on Twitter that "Kieswetter is proving to be South Africa's best export yet. For South Africa".

Yet, as befits a short international career that has gone up and down like a demented graphic equaliser, Kieswetter came back to star in England's win on Sunday. His three stumpings were an England record, and he finished the match with an exhilarating straight six off Dale Steyn.

Kieswetter has six appeal in spades. He has hit 30 of them in 42 ODIs, and is already eighth on England's ODI six-hitting list, even though everybody above him has played many more games. He has spanked a six every 35 balls, which compares favourably to some other English big-hitters: Andrew Flintoff (every 40 balls), Sir Ian Botham (every 61), Eoin Morgan (every 65 in his England ODI career), Kevin Pietersen (every 67). Even around the world, few can beat Kieswetter's six ratio. Chris Gayle hits one every 52 balls, Virender Sehwag every 58; Adam Gilchrist managed one every 67. Shahid Afridi clears the ropes every 21 balls, as does Kieron Pollard, but there's no shame being behind them.

In that sense, Kieswetter is a special talent. There are no guarantees he will make it, such is the nature of sport and the imperfections in his game, but he has palpably got something. Anyone who can drive Steyn down the ground for six cannot be ignored, and his ability to recover from a number of setbacks in his short international career suggests considerable resilience. It's also easy to forget that he was man of the match the only time England became world champions, against Australia in the World Twenty20 final of 2010 – yet even in that game he was dismissed in vaguely absurd circumstances, making so much room that he ended up offering no stroke to a ball from Mitchell Johnson that sent his off stump flying. He is a rare mix of imperiousness and haplessness, world-class instinctive brilliance and club-cricket ineptitude.

Behind the stumps he often takes amazing full-length catches and then drops regulation chances. Kieswetter's detractors wonder why he England should take such risks when there is a velvet-gloved alternative in Prior. Every Kieswetter drop is scrutinised, whereas a Prior drop is seen almost as a Halley's Comet moment. Prior has earned that right – but then again Kieswetter, who is still only 24, has surely earned the right for people to accept his keeping will improve, just as Prior's did after a traumatic start to his international career.

When Duncan Fletcher preferred Geraint Jones to Chris Read in 2004 he argued that, whereas you can teach someone to catch a ball, you can't teach them to score Test hundreds. Prior arguably proves this point. He scored a hundred on Test debut but struggled with his keeping in his first year of Test cricket. When he was dropped, ridiculed publicly for his keeping and his perceived role in the jellybean fiasco, he took his medicine and improved immeasurably. It might be stretching it to expect Kieswetter to become as good with the gloves as Prior, but he has shown a significant improvement since the start of his England career. You can teach someone to catch the ball, and to manoeuvre the ball around for singles (Kieswetter's dot-ball ratio is probably higher than it should be, although in this, too, he is improving). But you cannot teach them to hit the greatest fast bowler in the world down the ground for six. In a side that has very few regular six hitters, this is a priceless quality. Jonny Bairstow offers an intriguing third option, but it is easy to say why England persist with Kieswetter.

All this might be moot if Prior batted as well in ODIs as he does in Tests, yet his record is poor for a player of his abundant class. He has played 68 matches, making only two fifties in 62 innings, with an average of 24.18 and a strike rate of 76.76. Contrast that with Kieswetter's figures: he averages 30.59 with a strike rate of 92.53. He reaches 50 every sixth innings, rather than every 31st in Prior's case.

There are mitigating circumstances. Prior made his debut as long ago as 2004, and most of those innings were played when he was not the mature talent he is today. He has also never had a defined role, batting everywhere in the order apart from No5, No10 and No11. (Yes, he really did come in at No9 in an ODI.) In his most recent stint at ODIs, in the build-up to and during the 2011 World Cup, Prior averaged under 20 and never really got to grips with opening or batting as a lower-middle order finisher. His strokeplay is perhaps too orthodox for him to bat down the order and succeed against defensive fields – the fact he hits a six every 278 balls to Kieswetter's 35 supports that perception – and that the only place for him to bat would be in the top three, when his bullying drives could pierce the field during the Powerplay overs. There is unlikely to be any room in that top three for a while, however, which is why Kieswetter is having to learn a new role at No6.

Even when Prior did bat in the top three, as recently as last year, he struggled. He has played some sparkling innings for Sussex this year, particularly in T20 cricket, but it is not easy to know whether these are indicative of a player going to a new level or simply a high-class player taking apart county attacks. If England are to make the grand gesture of recalling Prior and dumping Kieswetter, they need to be pretty sure he can do to international bowlers what he has done at county level this season. And the problem of finding ways to score at the requisite rate has not gone away completely. In the context of a high-scoring CB40 semi-final against Hampshire last weekend, Prior's boundaryless 28 from 52 balls at No3 was arguably a match-losing innings.

Other brilliant attacking Test-match batsmen have found their talent is lost in translation to the shorter forms of the game. Michael Slater (42 ODIs; no centuries; average 24.07; strike rate 60.40) and Michael Vaughan (86 ODIs; no centures; average 27.15; strike rate 68.39) are the two most obvious examples. You can have as many theories as you like, but sometimes there is no grand reason; a slowish start to an ODI career simply begins to perpetuate itself for the usual human reasons. There is much talk of one-day specialists, yet for every one of those there must logically be a Test specialist. Prior is 30 now and, although it seems daft to say about a player of such talent, we may have seen the last of him in coloured clothing for England. Alanis Morissette might call the situation ironic. To the rest of us it's just another example of why cricket is an endlessly fascinating game.